France is using crowdsourcing to add African perspectives to French colonial West Africa. “France’s National Archives have invited people in some 100 cities nationwide to donate memorabilia – such as letters, photos and notebooks – linked to France’s role in West Africa in the 19th and 20th century. The operation, known as La Grande Collecte, aims to enrich the memory of the colonial period, adding the personal touch that’s currently lacking.” This is the third iteration of La Grande Collecte.

You can now doodle in Google Keep for Chrome. “Using the Keep app’s new drawing feature is fairly easy. From Keep’s Create note menu at the top, tap or click the pen icon to start a note with the drawing feature. At the top of the new note you’ll see a variety of drawing options including a pen, marker, and highlighter with various colors. There’s also an eraser and a selection tool.”

I have YouTube Red, and I watch that more than I watch regular TV, Netflix, etc. (Though to be fair that’s not a heck of a lot; I’m not good at watching TV.) YouTube’s watch suggestions are awful, and search is a joke. So I spend a lot of time looking for interesting channels to follow. MakeUseOf has a quick hint I didn’t know about.

It’s almost 2017, and that means all the social media networks are going to make apparently-arbitrary size changes and drive us all crazy. Happily Make a Website has you covered.

From Social Media Today: A Comparison of Snapchat and Instagram Stories [Infographic]. “Since the launch of Instagram Stories back in August, much of the discussion has been around whether the new feature will kill off Snapchat – after all, Instagram has a lot more active users and the functionality is largely identical. Or is it?”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

Looks like we’re going to see self-driving Alphabet cars on the road sooner rather than later. “Alphabet’s newest subsidiary, Waymo—the former self-driving car program within Alphabet’s X research lab—said today that it will be rolling out 100 of its new autonomous minivans onto US roads in 2017. The chunky cars were developed through a partnership between Google and Fiat Chrysler engineers, and their design is based on the automaker’s new Pacifica minivans.”

The AP: Politicians turn to social media to control message. “To deliver his first extensive remarks on the contentious Dakota Access oil pipeline, all the new North Dakota governor needed was a camera and a Facebook account. The simplicity of the setup spared Republican Gov. Doug Burgum from having to answer questions from reporters on Thursday and allowed him to convey his thoughts unfiltered and unchallenged by the press.”

SECURITY/LEGAL ISSUES

Washington Post: Google facing FTC scrutiny over privacy — yet again. “Consumer advocates have filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission charging that Google violated user privacy through a policy change that gives the company more leeway to build profiles of people as they browse the Web and use Google services.”

Sydney Morning Herald: Google found not to have defamed man over online images. “He’s beaten Google before, but not this time. A man who won $425,000 as a result of defamation cases against Google and Yahoo after searches brought up his photo among images of gangland figures has lost his bid for a second bite of the pie.”

RESEARCH AND OPINION

Poynter: Google is becoming less of a traffic powerhouse, new report suggests. “No surprise: Facebook remains dominant, sending 37 percent of all referral traffic across the 700-website network. That’s down a few percentage points from a year ago, when it drove 41.4 percent of referrers. But the story is different for search engines, most notably Google.”

OTHER STUFF I THINK IS COOL

Completely useless, but really nifty. From Alphr: Explore Google Earth one squiggle at a time . “This fun code experiment transforms aimless doodles into satellite imagery pulled from Google Earth. Created by artist and researcher Zach Lieberman, Land Lines invites you to draw a simple gesture, then watch it automatically pull up an analogous stretch of coastline, or hedgerow, or motorway.” You have to draw a LINE. No zigzags, no circles. Still fun. Good morning, Internet…

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